Sample Preparation

Why Ion Mill Sample Preparation?

You rely on accurate and useful data for microscopic investigation for device quality assurance, failure analysis, and material characterization. Proper sample preparation has become more challenging due to changes in high-tech materials, complex assemblies, and smaller components. You know that sample preparation for microstructural examination starts with a high quality prepared sample surface. We can help.

Whether your application is focused on failure analysis, device quality assurance, or material characterization, we have the capabilities to prepare artifact-free samples.

Our sample preparation techniques can be used directly on your surface with a high angle of incidence to reveal the microstructures and defects, enabling you to understand your material development process.

Metallurgical Sample Preparation

We utilize state of the art equipment to properly prepare for high-quality samples for scanning electron microscopy (SEM) investigations. This is the first step in metallurgical sample preparation or metallographic specimen preparation. We also have the capability to cut and polish samples.

Slope Cutting and Cross-Sectioning

While mechanical polishing, cross-sectioning, and chemical etching are suitable for many applications, ion beam milling is the technique we recommend for high-quality sample preparation. Our instrumentation has the widest range of accelerating voltage for the greatest amount of transmitted electrons produces wider undistorted cross-sections without applying mechanical stress to your sample.

Our instrumentation features two ion guns for rapid milling with a high voltage ion beam to cut and cross-section, followed by cleaning with a patented low-energy ion source providing for damage-free samples prepared for traditional microscopy and metallographic laboratories.

Slope Cutting options 30°, 45°, and 90°

Ion Milling for EBSD

Typical mechanical polishing creates artifacts and deforms the grains on the sample surface. Our dual ion gun with our technique we can reveal the grain size, pores and boundaries of your sample for high-resolution EBSD maps.

For artifact-free and damage free samples we recommend ion milling to get the best data for your investigations. We remove the top amorphous layer on a material to reveal the pristine sample surface for high-resolution imaging and post-processing.

We offer liquid nitrogen and Peltier cooling for heat sensitive or cryo samples to protect samples from overheating during the sample preparation process